We’ve been looking for a new apartment for some time now. From time to time I get frustrated because I feel like no home passes my checklist. (And there is no way that I’m being too demanding). When I pour out my frustration to Tim, he reminds me that the housing situation here is different from Finland. So today’s post is the sequel to this post where I listed a few cultural differences.

Traffic

L.A.’s lightest traffic is Finland’s worst traffic, times ten. 15 million people live here and one can get a driver’s license with certain restrictions at the age of 16. As I discussed in this post, you need to have a car in Los Angeles. You can only imagine how crazy it can get when all the people of L.A. are on the road at the same time. Even though there are usually 5-7 lanes in L.A. (compared to Finland’s 2), a 30-min trip can easily take over two hours if you hit traffic.

2. Food

Whether it is a restaurant or a grocery store, things here are totally on another level. In many chain restaurants, the dishes are yummy but very salty and greasy. The sizes of dishes could feed two people in Finland. The big size is demonstrated also in the grocery store. Onions, potatoes, strawberries… Everything is so much bigger here! A strawberry is so big that I cannot even fit them in my mouth. Onions are bigger than my fist. The reason for this is gene-manipulation which is forbidden in Europe. Gene-manipulation here is acceptable and totally normal which is why all the organic non-gmo foods are marked with a big “organic” sign. Usually, these sections are way, way smaller than the rest of the grocery sections in the average super market. You should know though that there are many all stores which specialize in all organic foods. Another thing that’s different here is that the grocery stores are usually small and their selections are smaller than in Finland. There are so many ingredients that I miss and am used to using while cooking but I can’t find them here.

3. Homes

Los Angeles is a very popular city and that is why the rents are super high. The rent of a 1 bedroom apartment in a nice and safe area is about 1500€ whereas the same apartment at the beach would be over 3000€. Here, most of the rentals have carpet instead of hardwood floor and the buildings are older. Many of the buildings were built in the 70’s and that’s why the kitchens and bathrooms can be a little old-fashioned. In L.A. people rent places a lot. The Finns are terrified about renting a place and not owning it but here it’s the other way around. People only buy homes when they know that it is going to be their “forever” home.